AJA Special Issue Featuring Select Papers From the Hearing Across the Lifespan (HEAL) 2018 Conference

October 16, 2019

More than 400 hearing experts from nearly 50 countries
gathered in June 2018 for the Hearing Across the Lifespan (HEAL) conference. In
celebration of the 20-year anniversary of the first HEAL conference, there were
more than 300 selected presentations. As in the past, Guest Editors Gabriella
Tognola, Sophia E. Kramer, Larry E. Humes, and Ferdinando Grandori have worked with
the authors to develop a selection of papers based on the content of this conference
in the American Journal of Audiology (AJA).

A common topic of these papers is the evaluation of hearing
performance in real life. After an introduction by the guest editors, Lisa
Margaret Brown and colleagues investigated a digits-in-noise screening test
that is self-administered via smartphones, determining it to be reliable for
both screening and rehabilitation purposes. Next, Annalise R. Fletcher and
colleagues examined the speech recognition of young adults in noise, looking at
several cognitive and linguistic variables to find potential performance
predictors. Then, Fatima Tangkhpanya and co-authors shared 12-minute videos of
a speaker in a real-life conversation scenario and then tested young and older
adults on the contents of the videos. They were surprised to discover that the
older group performed just as well as the younger, and in this article, they provide
theories as to why.

In the final paper of the special issue, Larry E. Humes tackles
the topic of real-life hearing performance by examining the World Health
Organization’s hearing-impairment grading system (WHO-HI). Although the current
grading system is based on expert opinion, he proposes a new system that
incorporates a listener’s self-report.

Other articles in this special issue cover topics such as the
role that hearing rehabilitation can play in restoring cognitive function and
clinical applications for a neurophysical test. Additional articles look at hearing aids and cochlear implants, focusing
on (a) factors that can predict hearing aid purchase, (b) the benefits of
bilateral cochlear implants, and (c) applying eHealth technology in treating
older cochlear implant users.

We’d like to thank all of our guest editors for their
important work bringing these papers to AJA! You can read the entire
issue here, or check out individual articles below! Still want more? Check out coverage
of the 2016 HEAL conference here.